Category Archives: India

After the colorful Nagaland, it’s time for the virgin land of Manipur! This state has long remained inaccessible to tourists (very-hard-to-obtain permits were required to get there), but the permit is no longer needed since a few months, which is good news for us.

Manipur is not only beautiful, it’ also one of the places where we received the warmest welcome. People are obviously not used to seeing tourists, and they are really doing their best to help us. Below, the making of jellabies, a typical sweet from India, yummy!

A highlight in our crossing of Manipur: Loktak lake. Gorgeous, and once again, incredible welcome from the local people. We are invited to have a glass of milk by the former school director of the village in his small fhisherman house by the lake. He is very disappointed we don’t want to stay to eat rice and fish, but it’s only 9:30 am and we just had a huge breakfast.

We start wondering what is going to happen at the border. We are hoping to cross by the land border in Moreh-Tamu, but it’s far from being easy, the border has been closed to foreigners for decades, and if we believe the Lonely Planet, it’s not even worth trying.

Luckily, we don’t believe the Lonely Planet too much, and after a lot of researching, Guillaume has drawn up a plan ^^. We wait for a little while at the Indian immigration together with M. Bobby who welcomed us Indian style in Moreh: when we arrived, he apologised for 15 minutes and told us he was so sorry and confused he couldn’t give us the VIP1 room from the only hotel in town because officials were also here on visit (we ended up in VIP2…). The next morning, we are woken up by a Reuters journalist who want to interview us. Being here is very special indeed!

And after long negociations, a drive to the border a few kilometers further to make sure the Burmese are ok to let us in and come back, here we are, we get our passports stamped out of India by land, hurrah!!!

Our adventures from Mongolia to India end with this article… coming soon, more adventures in South-East Asia, starting with Myanmar, stay with us; and until we send you something new to read, we wish you all a very merry christmas!

We leave Assam to reach the mountains of Nagaland, a North-Eastern state of India that most tourists still don’t know about. Many tribes keep ancestral customs alive in this state famous for its festivals.

A significant part of the population is christian, so we see christmas decorations everywhere. It’s 30°C outside and full sunshine, so it feels a bit weird to think that we are in December and that Christmas is coming soon…

It was a landmark during WW2, because this is where the British stopped the Japanese invasion. We can still see a tank that hasn’t moved since 1945. Guillaume read the guide thoroughly about the subject and is now guiding us. Bruce, our new South-African travel mate, listens carefully.

But Kohima is above all famous for the Hornbill festival, an annual festival that gathers all the tribes from the area. Because we are super-lucky, we happen to be there just at the right time, the first week of December. It’s party time everywhere in the city.

The most interesting is that everyday for a whole week, there are some performances from the different tribes of Nagaland: dances, small sketches presenting daily life scenes, songs, etc. In the audience, the tourists wearing shirts or polos sit next to the locals in traditionnal costumes, interesting contrast!

After several difficult days on the road, we are happy to relax in such a nice place. We find a great hotel run by a Tibetan family, hotel Dekeling. Everything is arranged for you to feel comfortable: living area with a hot stove and a gorgeous view, huge library, breakfast buffet with toasts and good Darjeeling tea, hot water bottles brought ​​in our room at night to warm up our bed… It’s like heaven !

We continue with a visit of the Himalayan mountaineering Institute, recounting the many expeditions that led to the conquest of Everest in 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. You can see the climbing gear at the time, press articles, photographs, this is exciting ! And it makes us want to beat our record of 5400 m 🙂

During out trip we need to cross some areas where few westerners travel. We then become a major interest for people living there. This is especially true in India. Do you know the names of Bengale, Rajasthan and Kerala? Yes? That’s good, you know the most touristic states of India. Now, do you know Bihar? No? Don’t worry, its inhabitants don’t know the place where you live either…

We discovered that every day the road was crowded because of a new festival. On the following pictures it was the “animal festival”. To go there people fill the cars/buses/trailers even more than usual. And it is like this during kilometers!

Sometimes it is even scary but Indian people are always very friendly. We stop once each day to have the chain cleaned/lubrified in small bike workshops and each time for us it is free. A picture and let’s go!

Our arrival in India is marked by an unprecedented story in more than 20 border crossings – just to let us dive straight into the “Incredible India” atmosphere. Guillaume goes to the customs office to have the carnet de passage stamped, commes back 5 minutes later and tells me to follow him: we are invited to have lunch with the Indian customs officers! Great meal, they refill our plates at least 5 times and we are not able to say no … our stay in India is starting nicely!

The border town of Sunauli is not particularly charming, so we do not stop there, we hit the road to Varanasi and reach Gorakhpur. We stop in a lovely hotel in front of the railway station.

Let’s not stay there any longer, let’s go! There are nice tea-houses or small restaurants on the road where we can have a chai (special Indian tea with milk, spices and lots of sugar) or lunch, it’s delicious, really cheap andwe receive a very warm welcome every time.

We also discover magnificent maharajas palaces. And of course, the famous “burning ghats”, where cremations of Hindus take place. Dying in Varanasi, the holy city, and be cremated there along the Ganges can liberate you from the cycle of lifes and make you reach nirvana, so many Hindus come here to die. This gives the city a very special atmosphere.

We end our walk on the main ghat where Mondher, a very nice Tunisian-American with whom we spent the day, is caught by a masseur who approaches him pretending to want to shake his hand and then not letting him go. Apparently he is talented, Mondher does not want to leave anymore!

– And so on: a water supply for the city (there are treatment plants, at least), a sewer, since a lot of waste waters end up into it, a burial for the dead who are not incinerated (among other children and religious if we understood right), a swimming-pool for buffaloes, a support for floating candles that are used to make wishes …

On the other side of the river, we see the sun rising little by little, gorgeous!

It is difficult to put words on these particular moments, the atmosphere of Varanasi is both mystical and magical. In any case our stay has plunged us into the heart of India, a land of contrasts, and Nepal that we left only a few days ago seems already far far away. And this is only the beginning of our Indian adventures, there is more to come!